But new Ethernet extensions, such as priority flow control under the
label DCB (Data Center Bridging)-also known as Data Center Ethernet or
Converged Enhanced Ethernet-enable logical pause capabilities in order
to prioritize traffic types when consolidating I/O. This allows the
creation of virtual lanes within an Ethernet link, with each virtual
lane assigned a priority level.

During periods of heavy congestion, customers can pause
lower-priority traffic while allowing high-priority and
latency-sensitive tasks (such as data storage) to continue.

Jay Kidd is Chief Marketing Officer at NetApp. Jay has extensive experience in storage, networking and high-performance systems. Before joining NetApp, he held the position of Chief Technology Officer and VP of Product Management at Brocade. Before joining Brocade, Jay was VP of Marketing for Omneon Video Networks (a supplier of storage and networking equipment for video broadcasters) and Multigen (a real-time 3D simulation software company). Prior to working at Multigen, Jay spent seven years at Silicon Graphics (SGI), where he directed marketing efforts for the graphics workstations, servers and SGI Web systems business. Earlier in his career, Jay worked at Hewlett Packard, where he held key engineering positions in the Information Networks group. Jay holds a Bachelor's Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University. He can be reached at jay.kidd@netapp.com.